Barnes continues roll for Salem

ZEBULON, N.C. -- Coming into his first professional season with the Red Sox, Matt Barnes had a simple goal.

Tim Britton

ZEBULON, N.C. -- Coming into his first professional season with the Red Sox, Matt Barnes had a simple goal.

Have a good outing every time out.

Eight starts in after Thursday night's win over the Carolina Mudcats, how did Barnes assess his season?

"I can't be mad," Barnes said with a smile. "I've been fortunate that my stuff has been working. I've had great command of the fastball. So through eight starts, I can't really complain."

Only the hitters of the South Atlantic and Carolina leagues can really complain about Barnes' season to this point. On Thursday night, he held the Mudcats to two hits in six scoreless innings. Both hits were ground balls; one didn't make it to the outfield. Barnes struck out five, walked one and hit a batter.

In his eight starts -- five with the Greenville Drive and now three with the Salem Red Sox -- Barnes is 4-0 with a microscopic 0.60 ERA. In 44 2/3 innings, he's allowed just three earned runs and 31 baserunners. He has struck out 67 and walked six.

"Everything he'd done in Greenville, I can see why he was successful there," Salem pitching coach Kevin Walker said before Barnes' outing on Thursday. "He works hard, he's extremely focused and he has a game plan when he goes out there. Obviously, he's got a really good fastball. He commands the fastball really well to both sides of the plate. His curveball's really sharp. He's still working on his change, and he's starting to use it more in each outing. He's really wanting to become a good pitcher, and he's working hard to do that."

Facing the Mudcats on Thursday, Barnes relied on that fastball almost exclusively. He spotted it on both sides of the plate and touched 101 mph according to a stadium gun he laughed off as "not accurate." It's likelier Barnes sat at around 93-94 mph and touched 97-98 throughout the game.

The right-hander didn't use his curveball and changeup as much as he had been in recent starts, attributing it to some mechanical issues he'll try to work through before his next start.

"Secondaries weren't exactly where I wanted them to be," he said. "[I was] pulling off the baseball a little bit, not staying through the ball with them. I was able to recognize, after the fact unfortunately, what I was doing wrong with them. We'll get after it [Friday] on working on correcting that."

While it's impressive that Barnes was still so dominant over a High-A team with just his fastball, the small size of the Carolina League will likely force him to use those secondary pitches more often. With just eight teams in the league, Barnes will start facing opponents more frequently -- something he had just started doing in the South Atlantic League when he was promoted.

"It's something that you're going to have to do if you want to move up. When you get to Double-A, Triple-A and the big leagues, you're pitching against the same team multiple times a year, hopefully for years to come," Barnes said. "Teams are going to see you a lot, so if you can't do it here, you're not going to have any luck doing it at the higher levels. As much as I'd love to face a brand new team every time where they have nothing on me, that's just not realistic. It's good I get to get used to it now and hopefully learn how to deal with that, and as I move up, have that already mapped out."

As the game went on, Carolina started to make better contact against Barnes. All five of Barnes' strikeouts came in the first 10 batters he faced; only one hitter in that stretch reached the outfield against him. Over the last 10 hitters Barnes opposed, three drove the ball to the outfield -- one to the edge of the warning track in center that Jackie Bradley, Jr. tracked down.

Barnes has continued to focus on his changeup with Salem. He's now made five starts since altering his grip from a four-seam circle change to a two-seam circle change, and he's getting more comfortable with it with each time out.

"I like it a lot," he said. "I've seen an improvement in the bullpen, and I'm using it more in games. I feel more confidence and more comfortable with it."

"A changeup, it's a comfort pitch. It's something that has to feel good for you," said Walker. "At this point right now, he's just looking to find something that feels good that he can throw just like his fastball. When he's aggressive and he stays on top of it, the sell that he gets with his arm action is the most important thing we want -- it looking like a fastball."

At this stage, to point holes in Barnes' outings redefines nitpicking. He's yet to allow more than one earned run, more than five hits or more than two walks in any single game. Forget losing a start; Barnes hasn't come particularly close to losing one.